


library etiquette

by Vault_of_Glass



Series: Kinktober 2018 [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Begging, Book nerd banter, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 12:41:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16175288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vault_of_Glass/pseuds/Vault_of_Glass
Summary: Day 2: BeggingOr, River meets a fellow bibliophile. Nate makes her beg.Nate Pendleton is gaqalesqua's delightful trouble child.





	library etiquette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gaqalesqua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaqalesqua/gifts).



The first time Nate Pendleton walks into her library, River wonders briefly if she dreamt him up.

It’s not  _her_ library; not really. But she never sees anyone else working so hard to preserve what little held together through two centuries of ruin. Her days are empty halls and dusty shelves and withered spines and firefights when not-so-friendly neighbors get too close, and nothing but the quiet in between.

Until Nate, at least. Tall, dark and handsome Nate who might as well have stepped right out of one of her old romance novels; who strolls past all five signs warning passerby like him to stay away, and all the shambling protectrons that stand sentinel over dead history; who stows his rifle and approaches the old information desk and asks her, with only the slightest shadow of a smile, if there is a librarian around who can assist him.

“Overdue books?” River guesses, tapping cautious fingers at the rifle across her lap. It’s criminal how far she needs to crane her neck back to meet his gaze, and once she does she finds it difficult to look away from the bright silver there, like precious metals catching sunlight.

He reaches into the pack at his side and sets three heavy, tattered books down on the counter. When he speaks, his voice reminds her of warm coffee. “I would’ve just dropped them through the chute, but they’re already a couple hundred years past due.”

She bites her lip to hide a smile. Scans him again from head to toe before leaning in to eagerly read the spines he’s set before her. Textbooks: physics, history, math. Valuable, to the right buyer, and only once she’s given each a thorough read. She eyes the orange jumpsuit peeking out from beneath his coat. “The Brotherhood doesn’t want these?”

He gives a shrug of his broad shoulders, his voice still utterly casual. “I’ve heard your selection is better.”

Her eyebrows lift in surprise, and she tilts her head at him, studying the easy expression on his face. He accepts her scrutiny with that same crooked smile. It suits him far too nicely. “Most people want supplies,” she notes, and if her continued curiosity has anything to do with his pretty eyes or his clever smile or how very, very tall he is, she keeps it to herself. “Caps, stimpaks, ammo.”

“I can get those anywhere. I came here looking for books.” He casts a pointed glance at all the shelves and tables that surround them. “Back in my day, at least, this was where you’d come to find them.”

Finally her smile breaks loose, and something like satisfaction glitters in his eyes at the sight - like he’s just won himself a lovely prize. She feels her cheeks warm in response. “Fair enough. I generally don’t like letting any of my books leave my sight, but…” Her gaze drops, for the smallest moment, to the pleasantly full shape of his mouth. “I suppose we could make some kind of exchange.”

“Now you’re speaking my language.” He grins and offers his right hand. His grip is rough and warm when she takes it, fingers wrapping all the way around the back of her hand. “I’m Nate, by the way. And very eager to see what you’d be willing to part with.”

“What I’d be willing to  _loan_ ,” she corrects him firmly. “And as long as you promise to bring them back to me, you can call me River.”

His smile only seems to widen at the bite to her voice, but he dips his head in understanding nonetheless. “I’ll take what I can get.”

In the end, Nate plucks an old Heinlein and a motorcycle maintenance manual from her shelves and places them in his bag with obvious care. She hasn’t seen anyone treat a book that kindly in a very long time, since early mornings flipping through old comics with her father, and her heart aches a little at the memory, leaving a sudden fondness behind.

He pauses in the doorway to take one last longing look at all the shelves she’s filled, whistling softly to himself. “Hell of a collection,” he admires. “I can see why you take such care now.”

River basks in his visible enjoyment, warm and bright like morning sunshine. Her heart beats easier in this room, among these pages that she’s spent nearly a lifetime reading and restoring. “Thank you. That really means a lot to hear.” She can feel his stare pass over her, lingering on her expression, as if committing her features to memory. The attention heats her through like a very good drink.

“I can tell,” he says finally, and pats the bag at his side with a reassuring smile. “And I promise these a safe return.”

She nibbles at her bottom lip, her eyes caught on the broad splay of his hand, the feeling of his grip around her own still vivid in her sensory memory. “You should keep them,” she blurts out, and the words feel right on her tongue when she does. Her gaze lifts back to his, where surprise and delight fill silver eyes. “I’m not a big sci-fi fan anyways, and I… feel better knowing they’ll be in good hands.”

His mouth tilts into an absolutely devilish smirk. “I can assure you, my hands are more than capable.”

River almost laughs, but the sound twists into something softer, fonder, breathy with longing. From the burning in her cheeks, she can only guess how pink they’ve gotten. “I believe you.”

“If you don’t, I’d be happy to demonstrate.”

She believes that, too.

That familiar tickle of anticipation remains as they walk the long hall back toward the atrium, as Nate glances down at her, as she watches him from the corner of her eye and thinks of all the many ways she’d like him to see him prove how skilled those hands are.

She reaches out to stop him before he leaves, curling her hand around his arm and feeling the muscle there tense in surprise. “Come visit me sometime? A girl gets lonely with just books to keep her company.”

Nate hums and tilts his head from side to side, playing coy, but she can see the smile threatening to break free.

River pouts. “Don’t make me beg.”

The smile drops then, and a look of utter focus overtakes him. He leans in close, close enough to feel his warmth and the calloused touch of his hand as he reaches up to gently cup her chin. “Would you?” he asks her, his voice low and intrigued. His lips spread back into that wicked smirk. “I think I’d like to see that.”

From that small, tender point of contact, River feels a rush of warmth sink through her. She thinks of kissing those rough fingers, one by one. Pictures them curling firm and certain around her throat.

_Oh, yes. This man could absolutely make me beg._

And then,  _I want him to._

Nate sighs, a frustrated sound, glancing over his shoulder at the front doors as if torn. As if he wants that, too, and he’s considering throwing the rest of his day to the wind to make it happen.

“Another time, maybe?” River teases, releasing her hold on his arm.

He catches her hand by the wrist and ducks his head to press a kiss to her knuckles. She feels the rasp of stubble and soft lips and warm breath and fuck she must be touch-starved, because a shudder runs her spine at just that simple touch. “A rain check,” he confirms, with a heat in his gaze that promises fulfillment.

River lifts her fingertips to the searing blush that lingers in her cheeks and watches Nate leave, and the library has never felt so quiet when he does.

* * *

When Nate returns, he brings her poetry.

Rain pounds loudly at the pavement when he shoulders through the front doors, his coat soaked and dripping onto chipped linoleum. River hurries to close and block the doors behind him, keeping the raging storm barely at bay.

“Sorry about your floor,” Nate apologizes with a sheepish smile, shrugging out of his wet coat and letting her take it from his hands when she reaches for it.

“This building has survived a couple hundred years of apocalypse. We’ll survive a few more rainstorms.” She stands up on tiptoes to hang his coat from a tattered old rack and flicks the water from her fingertips. “Interesting time to make a trip to the library.”

“I was in the area,” he offers all too casually, and she’d almost forgotten how much he seems to enjoy teasing her. How easily he brings a smile to her face. How often he makes her blush. “And I have something you might like,” he promises with a grin.

“You can give it to me once you’re dry.” River tows him to the reading room where she sleeps before he can so much as protest, planting him firmly before the fire there. He scans the organized chaos of her home with open curiosity as she rummages through her trunk for a towel. When his eyes land on the recently disturbed sheets of her bed, he frowns.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” he demands, sounding guilty.

“No,  _hermoso_.” She finds the biggest towel she owns and carries it back over to drape around his shoulders. “I was reading. When the protectrons started chattering, I went out to check on things.”

“Hoping it was me?” He tilts his head back to grin up at her.

River laughs softly, admiring his smile from under heavy lids. Slowly, giving him time to stop her, she lifts her hand to run her fingers through the short, still-damp crop of his hair, her nails soothing across his scalp. He leans into the touch, eyes slipping briefly closed as a pleased little noise rumbles in his throat. The sound feels like it rolls right through her. “You said you brought me something?” she reminds him, her throat abruptly far too dry.

“Mmn. That’s right.” Nate’s eyes blink lazily back open, dragging up the length of her body before he tears his gaze away and reaches for his bag. River settles on the ground beside him and clutches her sweater in tighter around herself as the fire drives the chill from her body. After a few moments of pulling rain-soaked supplies from his bag, Nate finally produces two thin hardback books and places them with a flourish in her waiting hands.

River brushes her thumbs gingerly over the covers, like they might dissolve to ash right in her hands.  _The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson_  and Frost’s  _Mountain Interval_ , both in remarkable condition. She stares at the faded sleeves in disbelief. “Poetry,” she breathes, her voice so very small. “How did you know?”

“Your shelves are full of poets,” he answers easily; triumph warms his voice. “Neruda, Whitman, Angelou, Paz. Names I haven’t seen in forever.”

A lump forms in her throat, the sting of tears threatening to spill over. She shakes her head and tries to blink them back. “I couldn’t possibly take these from you.”

He holds her gaze as he lifts a hand to wipe an errant tear away with his thumb. “No need to take. They’re a gift.” The fire casts his face in flickers of dim light, his eyes intent on hers, the soft curve of a smile on his lips.

“You didn’t have to come back,” River murmurs, unable to drag her eyes from his mouth. She remembers the feel of that mouth against her fingers.

“Promised you a rain check, didn’t I?” He glances at the far window, where rain still batters at the clouded glass. “It  _is_ raining.”

“I thought the point was to avoid the rain.”

“And here I am, avoiding it with you.” At the sound of her laughter, he tilts closer and drops his thumb to the bow of her lips, trailing his touch over the sensitive skin there. It would be simplicity itself to part her lips and take his thumb between them.

“I didn’t even have to beg,” she observes in a breathless whisper, and he laughs back, a rolling thunder sound that leaves her craving more.

“Do you want to?” Nate curls his fingers under her chin and gently tips her head up to read her expression. Silver eyes roam her features with a heated, hungry look. “Do you want me to make you?”

Every nerve in River’s body sings with  _yes_. “I’d like to see you try,” she breathes instead.

His laughter rumbles deeper at the challenge. “Oh, River. I thought you’d never ask.” He slides his hand to the back of her neck, threading fingers into the pale tresses of her hair as he leans in to claim her mouth. His kiss feels just like she imagined it would: sweet and rough in turns, lips moving softly against hers before parting to edge his teeth in. His tongue runs the curve of her bottom lip, and she lets out a tremulous whine.

Nate chuckles when they part, looping an arm around her waist and dragging her into his lap. His clothes press wet between their bodies, still soaked from the rain. “Cold!” River gasps, half-giggling, just as his mouth finds the column of her throat and starts to test his teeth there, too. Then he bites down, and that sudden sucking sting is everywhere and everything. Her fingers clutch tight at his shirt and she shudders in his lap, losing her breath in a shaky sigh.

“I’ll warm you back up, angel,” he promises against her throat, his voice rough and muffled. “Don’t you worry.” His hand settles at the small of her back, and that impish smirk is all the warning she gets before he’s lifting her easily into his arms and sprawling her across a nearby desk. She sends an old paperweight and a desk fan crashing to the floor as he tugs his shirt up over his head and drops it in a wet heap on the ground.

River lifts onto her elbows for a better look, reaching out to drag her fingers down his chest when he steps closer. His skin is warm and scarred and still a little damp over hard muscle, and she follows the dips between his abs to the salt and pepper hair that trails his stomach. He plants his hands on either side of her hips, letting her explore him while he nuzzles affectionately at her neck.

She cups his face in her hands and draws him closer, his hips fitting into place between her thighs, and the rigid heat she feels there pulls another whimper from her throat.

“God, the  _sounds_ you make -” Nate groans. “And I’ve barely touched you.” He nudges her shirt back over her shoulders, baring her skin to the chill and the distant lick of firelight and his beautiful mouth as he trails kisses up the soft skin of her stomach. “Been thinking about what you’d sound like.” He maps her skin with avid fascination, her collarbone, her ribs, the jut of each delicate hip bone. “Can’t wait to hear you begging for me.”

River nearly does. With every rapid pulse, her heart beats  _please_. The word hovers behind her teeth, and it would be so wonderfully  _easy_ to let it free -

She bites down. Shivers out a liquid laugh that holds more breath than sound.

“That one’s nice, too. But I know you have more.” His hand works the latches of her bra and he kisses every inch of skin he bares as the garment comes loose. When he dips his mouth down the hollow between her breasts, she squirms beneath him, pinning her nails into his shoulders.

“Nate -  _ah_ -!” It takes every ounce of effort not to plead for more.

He lifts his head at the sound of his name, though his hands never leave her body. He seems to recognize something in her expression, and a fiendish smile shapes his lips. “You like begging, don’t you? Asking nicely, like a good girl.” When she bites her lip to stifle another whimper, he laughs low and rough under his breath. His arm drags her up against him as he parts his lips around the stiff peak of her nipple and draws it gently between his teeth. His tongue follows in slow, languid strokes that send pulses of heat sinking through her. He lingers until she sobs a desperate moan, then turns and attends to the other with equal care.

River rolls her hips, aching with need and sighing in relief when he presses back against her. She runs her hands along his shoulders, feeling the muscles shift there as he moves. “Nate, honey -”

“Hmm?” Nate smiles breathlessly down at her, barely dragging himself away from the love bites he was leaving down her neck. His eyelids hang low over his eyes, silver bitten into slivers by a swell of black. “I’ll give you what you want, kitten. Just need to hear you ask for it.”

She wants to, she’s  _dying to_ ; her thoughts cascade into a rush of  _yes, please, more_ as he continues his unhurried exploration of her skin, hitching his thumbs into the waistband of her shorts and inching them down over her hips. His mouth never slows, always pressing lips and teeth and hungry, clever tongue.

He palms her thighs and parts them, guiding her legs over his shoulders as he sets his mouth to the slope of her thigh. He sucks a mark into the skin there before trailing higher, and she gasps at the first drag of two thick fingertips down the slick folds of her sex.

“Fuck, you’re so  _wet_ ,” he sighs, hard with longing. With one easy tug, he has her hips cradled in his hands, and then his mouth is between her thighs, and she can feel his  _tongue_ , and a broken wail climbs her throat at the sudden pleasure.

“Oh! Oh,  _god_ , Nate!” Her body arches into a tight curve, gripping at his hair with trembling fingers. He pins her legs wide and rolls his tongue, and she starts to shake in his hands. Her hips writhe beneath him, chest heaving with labored breath.

He hums in consideration, shifting his thumb in a light circle around the hood of her clit that has her squirming fitfully to his touch. When he withdraws his hold on her, she whines at the loss, and the word slips out before she can stop it -

“ _Please_.”

A smile brightens his face. He drops a languid kiss to her lips and clutches her close, sinking his hips and the hard heat between them against her. “That’s it, River. Tell me what you want.”

“Please.” Now that she’s started, she thinks she might never be able to stop - that this need he’s built in her will burn and burn for a lifetime and never go out. “Please touch me.”

Nate’s hand settles between her legs again. She hears the slick sound of his fingers on her, pushing in with slow, teasing motions. Her hips buck against his hold, wriggling to urge him deeper, until his free hand pins her securely in place. “Use your words,” he teases, slanting a grin down at her.

“I want to feel you,” she whines back, clinging with pale knuckles to his shoulders. Nate steadies his touch at that same idle pace, but his gaze is utterly focused on hers as she struggles to form the words. “Want you to fill me,  _hermoso_. Make me scream.”

His breath curls into a hoarse groan, and he presses his hand to the side of her face, claiming her lips once more. She feels his hips roll against hers, then the heavy tip of his cock between her thighs, catching in and spreading her with another shallow thrust. A gasp steals her breath at the sweet ache of that perfect stretch. Her nails bite divots into his arms as she pleads for more in broken whispers, folding her legs in around him and moaning when he comes to rest flush against her.

Nate shudders, ducking his head against her shoulder for a slow, deep breath before languidly pulling out. She arches at the drag of his cock withdrawing, then the slick drive back in that feels somehow so much deeper than before.

“Nate, honey, it’s so good,” she babbles, curling shaky fingers along the back of his neck. “Please, god, don’t ever stop.”

He murmurs soothingly between sucking bites at her neck. His fingers still grip firmly at her thigh, pinning her open as he moves against her. “I’ve been dreaming of having you like this.”

 _Dreaming and daydreaming_. Staring up at the cracked ceiling when she can’t sleep, touching herself and picturing Nate’s hands on her instead.

Nate draws a thumb down her stomach to the bead of her clit, rolling lazy shapes between each thrust. Every pass of his thumb eats away at her like waves against a shore, eroding sense and self-control until she’s whining nonsense in the vague shape of his name, seizing as he drags her ever closer.

“Please, Nate - baby, I’m so close-!”

“Then let me see you come, kitten,” he rumbles, nipping at the shell of her ear, and when his hips snap hard against hers, she unravels with a high-pitched moan, thighs clamping tight around his hips. Her voice falls apart. The mindless bliss crashes through her and leaves her limp and panting in his arms.

Nate eases her out of it with slow, deep kisses, her tongue still clumsy in the coming down. He pulls away and she feels empty, weightless, like she’ll float away without his hold to anchor her. “Not through with you just yet,” he promises, and rolls her onto her stomach with one broad hand at her hip. She plants her toes on the cool floor as Nate leans down to kiss the back of her neck. He gathers the sweep of her hair in his hand, securing a firm hold there while he grips his cock and guides himself inside her once more.

River gasps. Beats her fist against the desk and grips her nails in with the other, panting curses as Nate fucks her from behind with sharp, determined thrusts.

“You feel so good,” he growls, fingers digging tight around her hip, and every tiny pain in every point of contact melts away into the heady pleasure when his cock sinks in again. The sting of her hair in his fist, and the bite marks that throb from his teeth, and the edge of the desk biting into her hips - every atom of it, bliss.

Nate pins her with a hand at the small of her back, the other still locking her hip in place for each wild thrust that bring them back together. His mouth finds the back of her shoulder and nips softly. “Gonna come, kitten.”

River reaches back to score her nails down the side of his hip. “I want to feel you,” she begs, in the broken, breathless remnants of her voice. “Please, Nate, fill me up.”

He breathes a ragged groan into her skin and sinks in deep, wracking his hips into a few last stuttering thrusts until he spills inside her with a strangled gasp. He fucks her through it, and she curls her hands around his arm, clinging to him with white knuckles.

Nate drops his head against her back, and past the rushing of her heartbeat in her ears, she can just hear him plant a soft kiss there. He slips out of her with a wet, filthy sound, catching her by the hips when she wobbles. He must feel the shaking in her weak legs, because he lifts her in his arms again as if she weighs nothing at all - as if he didn’t just fuck her into a two-hundred-year-old desk.

River blinks teary eyes up at him until his face comes into better focus. She lifts her shaking fingertips to the edge of his mouth, tracing his smile. “Stay,” she says quietly. “Stay the night with me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep thinking about you out in that storm.” She pauses as a blush rises anew across her cheeks. “Can’t sleep most nights already, thinking about you.”

He kisses her, softly, tender in the wake of such frenzied intimacy. “I’m not going anywhere.” He’s large enough to test the boundaries of her mattress on his own, so she curls in comfortably against his chest, secure between his arms, and the heat radiating from his skin soothes her tired muscles.

“You won’t regret it. I make amazing breakfast,” she informs him, her speech already heavy with sleep, and his chest shakes with laughter beneath her.

River falls asleep to the sound of the rain, and his breathing, and his heartbeat strong and steady in his chest, and finds she much prefers him to the quiet.


End file.
